


(If You Love It) Set It Free

by chromyrose



Series: SASO 2017 [27]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Non-Chronological, Post-Divorce, Pre-Canon, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromyrose/pseuds/chromyrose
Summary: After the divorce, Yakov remembers and forgets.





	(If You Love It) Set It Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inelegantly (Lir)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/gifts).



> For the prompt: _"Love - a dangerous disease instantly cured by marriage."_ Det. Lennie Briscoe, Law  & Order
> 
> It's important to note that [this tumblr post](http://zahhaked.tumblr.com/post/158832512233/when-did-yakov-and-lilia-divorce) has contributed a lot to my headcanons about the timeline of Yakov and Lilia's divorce, which in turn strongly influenced this fic. For those who can't follow the link, tl;dr is that Yakov and Lilia got divorced sometime between the Sochi GPF and Viktor leaving to Japan, which means it happens _immediately_ before the canon story starts. That said, the first section of this fic is set during the canon timeline, the second is set ~40-50 years in the past (I imagine Lilia is about 19 in those parts) and then we go back and forth between those two times.

Lilia gets the house in the divorce. Yakov moves into a small apartment near the rink where he trains his skaters, and reminds himself that it’s better not to be living surrounded by the memories of what they used to have.

And then his lawyer calls, and tells him that Lilia’s put their home for sale. Yakov goes slack-jawed, nearly drops the phone right out of his hands, and before he knows what he’s done the dial tone is gone and there’s ringing in his ears.

“Hello,” Lilia answers primly, and Yakov can picture her perfectly; hair drawn into a tight bun at the crown of her head, carved cheekbones, and lipstick so red it might as well be his blood she’s painted on her mouth. 

Unlike his ex-wife, Yakov is not prim, and he has no desire for niceties. “Our _house_?” He demands into the telephone, hoping his voice sounds less wretched to her than it does to his own ears. 

“It is my house now, Yakov,” she answers coolly, so much so that Yakov wonders if she’d been anticipating his call. He seethes. 

“Because you demanded it in the divorce! If you didn’t want it, you could have ceded it!” 

She sighs, sounding bored. “I would like the money from the sale to open a new home, one with space for a studio. You understand, don’t you? Would you not have done the same for your skaters?” 

“Sell it to me,” he says without thinking. On the other end of the line, Lilia’s laugh is cruel. 

“Don’t be foolish, Yakov,” she advises. There’s a click, and then an empty dial tone. Yakov swears under his breath as he hangs up the phone. 

\--

Yakov had never been very keen on the ballet portion of his training, but it was undeniable that he was good at it and that it was good for his skating. When his aging dance instructor retired, she referred him to a different studio, one with international renown: the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. 

He was made to audition, which got under his skin like the worst itch; for a figure skater taking supplementary lessons, there was no point in working so hard when any class would do. But when his coach wondered if he was afraid he wasn’t good enough, Yakov auditioned, undone by his own pride. And it was there, coming out of the changing room in a leotard, that he quite literally ran into the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Yakov was so caught off guard that he fell onto his ass indelicately; the girl took a step back and caught herself cleanly. 

“Well,” she said dryly, looking him over with piercing eyes. “You’re not very graceful, are you?”

\--

What bothers Yakov most is how little has changed after the divorce. He wakes up at the crack of dawn for a jog, his knees and ankles creaking beneath him but holding up nonetheless. He returns to his apartment and makes a small breakfast of cheese sandwiches, adding sausage if there’s time to spare. He brews strong black tea in a thermos, and takes it with him to the rink. 

The younger skaters give him a wide berth because they still think he’s scary. His seniors, what few that he has, give him a wide berth because they’re lazy. Mila approaches him first, a protein bar between her lips as she takes her heavy coat off. 

“I want to make changes to my free skate,” she says after swallowing a mouthful of food. Yakov sighs.

“Finish eating and go change first,” he says. “We’ll talk about skating when you are ready to skate.” 

She nods and disappears down to the locker room, returning a few minutes later in her typical tightly fitted workout clothes. Her hair is pulled up in a short ponytail on her head, exposing the shaved sides, and Yakov remembers how he’d blown up at her when he first saw it; as a balding man he couldn’t fathom a young, beautiful girl willingly ridding herself of so much hair. Mila had laughed him off and promised that the judges wouldn’t know her head was shaved with her hair styled down. 

Begrudgingly, he’ll admit that the style suits her. And he refuses to get into the business of policing his skaters’ bodies beyond what he’s required to do as a coach, so he hasn’t brought it up since. 

“So,” he starts slowly, after he’s finished his first cup of tea. “What’s wrong with your free skate?” 

“Nothing is _wrong_ with my free skate,” Mila answers seriously, looking from Yakov to her phone as she starts to pull something up. “But Sara Crispino posted a video to Instagram last night where she lands a very clean triple Lutz-triple Flip combination, and I’m worried I need something more competitive.” 

Yakov holds his hand out for the phone so he can see the video, and Mila readily offers it. Without asking or being asked to, she also reaches into Yakov’s tote and takes out his reading glasses. He accepts them with a wordless scowl. 

After watching the video on loop several times, Yakov hands the phone back and removes his glasses with a hum. “I’ve never known what to make of this social media business. At first I believed it was a stupid mistake for a skater to post their progress like this online, giving their competitors hints as to what they’ve been working on, but now I see that it can have profound psychological effects on the competition as well.”

“So you think she’s just trying to psych me out?” 

“It is possible,” Yakov decides. “And even if that was not her intention, it does seem to have been the result. To which I remind you that you are Russian, and Russians do not get intimidated.”

Mila laughs, and Yakov smiles a little, forgetting about the lonely apartment. “Before you saw this video, did you think your program was not competitive enough?” 

“No,” she answers confidently, and he grins. 

“I do not think it is, either,” Yakov agrees. “Do not be like Vitya, who is making changes on the ice all the time; I cannot afford to lose any more hair.”

“You really can’t!” Mila laughs and pats his bald spot. Yakov scowls, but it’s all good-natured. “Thank you, Yakov.” 

“Of course.” 

\--

It surprised no one that Yakov did not succeed in his audition to train at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, least of all himself. He was bitter, of course, because no athlete likes to lose at anything, but Moscow was full of dance academies and instructors, and his coach was already on the phone. 

What Yakov was most annoyed about was the audience that had been there for his failure; specifically, the girl he’d bowled over in the hallway. Once he’d noticed her reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror, he could feel her critical gaze on him as he danced, and she stayed to listen in on his humiliation as Yakov received his critique. 

Afterwards, she followed him out of the studio. 

“Why would you come audition at the Bolshoi when you obviously care nothing for ballet?” She demanded. “Why waste our time?” 

“I didn’t waste your time,” he snapped back, all the nerves incited by her beauty having burned away in his irritation. “No one asked you to supervise.” 

“I was curious,” she sniffed haughtily. “You look strong and conventionally attractive – if you’d been accepted they would undoubtedly have tried to pair us together at some point.”

Yakov felt himself flush an unseemly red. “Dancing isn’t my priority or my interest,” he scoffed. “And I do not perform in recitals.” 

“Recitals?” The girl echoed, cocking her skinny hip. “Do I look like a girl who does recitals to you?” 

“Unlike some people, I try not to make assumptions.” 

“I am the Prima Ballerina of this company,” she huffed. “Lilia Baranovskaya.”

If nothing else, Yakov thought, it certainly explained her attitude. 

“Yakov Feltsman,” he replied in kind. “I am a figure skater.” 

“Oh,” Lilia murmured in surprise, giving him another once over with this new information. “An ice dancer. Hopefully you have more grace on the ice than on the ground.” 

“I will show you,” Yakov said without thinking. “Come to the rink and I will show you.” 

He surprised himself and almost wanted to take it back, because there was no way Lilia was going to say yes. But, to his immense surprise, she looked down at her slippers with a flush to her cheeks. 

“Very well,” she murmured. “My only free time is on Sunday, after Mass.”

“I-I will come pick you up?” 

Lilia nodded, and when her gaze met Yakov’s again she hurried away into one of the studios.

\--

It is completely in character for Viktor to show up “fashionably late” for practice, especially since he’s taken his latest golds in both the Grand Prix Final and the World Championship. 

What is completely out of character is for him not to show up to practice at all. Yakov is irritated by 10 am, livid by noon, and by 5 pm his stomach is curled up in a ball of worry. All of his calls go directly to voicemail, and he leaves so many messages that soon the operator voice is telling him that the inbox is full. 

He resorts to asking his seniors to check on social media, but they all agree that hasn’t posted to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, whatever that all means. He lets everyone go home early, because he can’t focus on any of their hard work and it would be cruel to keep them, and no one except Yuri has any complaints. 

Even though it’s in the opposite direction of his place, Yakov heads to Viktor’s apartment. He lives in a part of Saint Petersburg full of new developments to attract younger people, and the streets are crowded with young couples in line for restaurants or nightclubs. He briefly wonders if Lilia would want to know that Viktor’s AWOL, if she would care even though the skaters are something Yakov got in the divorce. 

Despite Yakov’s aggressive pounding on the door, no one answers; he doesn’t even hear the typical barking he would get out of Makkachin, who absolutely loves visitors. In one respect, it calms Yakov, because a kidnapper would be unlikely to take both Viktor and the dog, but the comfort from that thought doesn’t last. He wonders if he should call the police, the hospitals, Figure Skating Federation of Russia… he wants to call Lilia. Like Yakov, she is softer than she looks, but unlike Yakov, she is rational even in the face of such unreasonable situations. 

He pulls up her number, and his finger hovers over the dial button. On-screen, his phone reminds him that he called her last night. _“Don’t be foolish, Yakov.”_

Yakov puts his phone away and returns home.

\--

Yakov would never jinx a routine by showing it to anyone but his coaches and choreographers before a competition, and Lilia was no exception. So when Sunday came and he brought her to the rink, he skated one of his older programs for her. Bringing the music with him hadn’t been an opinion, so he asked her to hum Prokofiev’s _Dance of the Knights_.

He couldn’t hear her humming, but he knew the song so thoroughly that once he got into the starting pose for the program, the opening notes bellowed in his mind. Yakov closed his eyes before he began, and when he opened them again everything had faded away except for the ice beneath his skates. It was a good day, when his body did exactly as it was supposed to without him having to think about all the moving parts, and when the routine ended, Lilia’s applause came as a surprise. 

Her eyes were sparkling when he skated over to the rink side where she was standing on her toes, as if eager to get a closer look. More than the effort of the routine, the beauty of her delight made him flush. 

“What do you think?”

“You are absolutely more graceful on ice,” she pronounced. “Perhaps you should never come off.”

“Are you going to join me, then?” 

Lilia frowned, looking forlornly at the ice. “Madame would kill me if I injured myself playing…”

“I won’t let you fall,” Yakov promised immediately. “You won’t get hurt.”

He didn’t notice himself move any closer, but he found himself practically nose-to-nose with Lilia, the two of them alone in the rink. Yakov shyly reached for her hand, and she placed it in his palm. 

\--

The good news is that Yakov has located Viktor.

The bad news is that Viktor is in a no-name town in Japan. 

The worse news is that Yuri followed him there without warning.

The worst news of all is that word of this gets to Lilia, who keeps tabs on Yuri’s online presence. 

He’s so shocked to see her name on the Caller ID that he picks up without thinking, and is rewarded for it with an earful of “How could this happen right under your nose?” and “This is a new level of inattentiveness, even for you,” and “At least Vitya is an adult now, how did you allow _Yura_ to pull this stunt?” 

He hangs up and sits in the bleachers alongside the rink, his head in his hands. He feels a presence beside him, but it isn’t until there is an open palm on his back that Yakov looks up. 

Georgi is there, offering his coach a warm, compassionate smile. Georgi may not pull in big scores the way Viktor and Mila do, but if pressed, Yakov might admit that Georgi is his favorite.

“How are you holding up?”

“Everything is falling to shit,” Yakov admits with a barking, self-deprecating laugh. “Viktor vanished, Yuri vanished after him, and Lilia’s selling our old home.” 

Georgi frowns, a look of deep understanding on his face. “Anya blocked my number,” he confesses. 

Yakov scoffs; he’d be sick of hearing about Anya if he wasn’t slightly grateful not to be the only one with woman problems. “You can do much better. Your skating shows much more emotional depth, and she is the ice dancer.”

Georgi’s breath hitches, but thankfully he manages to keep his composure. The last thing Yakov has the patience to put up with now is a sobbing 27 year old man. 

“Would you like me to put an offer on the house for you?” Georgi offers. “I’m sure I could convince Lilia that the house is sentimental enough to me.”

“No, I do think Lilia is right. It wouldn’t be good for me to go back there and live with the ghosts of our relationship. Living there without her would just be punishing myself.” 

“Do you miss her? Do you still love her?” He asks, his voice soft and full of hurt. Yakov chuckles bitterly. 

“Of course I miss her,” he answers readily. “We were together for more than forty years. But do I love her…” Yakov frowns. “I don’t know. She’s not the same girl she was when we met. I’m not the same, either. But I don’t think I’ve thought much about it; I loved her then, and I had taken it for granted ever since. I might have gone the rest of my life taking it for granted, too, if she hadn’t forced me to really consider it.” 

“So your love is just… gone?” 

Yakov sighs, and looks at Georgi, remembering the little boy who’d been brought to his training camp when he was eight years old. He’s known him for so long, watched him grow so much, watches now as the hourglass of his career is nearly out of sand, that he’s forgotten how young Georgi really is. How much of life he has yet to experience. 

“It’s not gone,” he explains patiently. “Part of me will always love her, and she will always be important to me if only for all the time we spent together. But if Lilia is happiest living with her freedom and acknowledging that her feelings have changed, then I’ll learn to live that way, too.” 

Georgi blinks, and tears roll down his cheeks. He sniffs. “You’re so strong, Yakov! Please don’t give up on love!” 

“Yeesh,” Yakov huffs. “Clean yourself up and get back on the ice, emotional purging break time is over!” 

\--

For nearly ten years, Yakov and Lilia’s relationship consisted of nothing but stolen moments in between their booming, larger-than-life careers. She toured the world with the Bolshoi Ballet, he represented the Soviet Union in multiple Olympic competitions, and when they weren’t doing that, Yakov snuck her to his apartment for dates away from public eyes. 

“What is your dream?” Lilia asked, lying in his bed in nothing but her slip and stockings. She’d taken her hair out of its extreme bun, and the curly brown locks spilled over her shoulders. Yakov mused that if she was any less headstrong or any less talented, she would probably have been taken away to lead a much more salacious life. 

“My dream?” He echoed, a furrow in his brow. “To skate?” 

“Beyond skating,” she clarified. “You do that now. What do you plan to do when you cannot do that anymore?” 

He frowned deeper. “I have not thought about that yet. Why would I worry about something depressing and far away when I should be focusing on right now?” He answered, thinking of the ring box hiding in his sock drawer that he hoped Lilia hadn’t found yet; the time wasn’t right. There was no way she’d think about marrying him when she could be dancing instead. “Do you have a dream for after?” 

And if Yakov had been hoping for her to mention him, or marriage, or marriage to him, he would be let down when she sighed and admitted, “I want to open my own boarding school. I will only take a few dancers, only the best, and they will live in my home and take meals with me. And there will be a large dance studio, with three walls of mirrors and a wall of windows, for all of their lessons with me.”

Yakov looked at Lilia then, and saw her green eyes sparkling like nothing he’d seen before. Whatever she was looking at in her mind’s eye, he knew he couldn’t imagine it. He laid back down wordlessly and hoped that one day, he could be responsible for such a sparkle in her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I put a lot of my headcanons about Yakov, Lilia, and the Russian skaters into this, so I would love to know what you guys think; please don't hesitate to leave a comment! You can also find me online on [twitter](https://twitter.com/haikyuutiie).


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